Alternate world Propaganda

As promised, when I blank out my stuff I'll post it here for whoever wants to use it. Credit's optional, but appreciated. :) This one is actually a food stamp of some sort, but I thought it'd make awesome alternate money. :D

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Would anyone care to blank this out for me? Whatever I'd do to the grass part would look horrible. :p But I really want to make my own version of this:

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Also, guys, from now on, whenever I blank a poster myself, I'll post it here for public use. :D Since I have to do it anyway, might as well help some folks wanting to do the same thing!

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did my best for ya.
 
Here we go, guys! This is not for any TL I have, I just really liked the idea. :)

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One question:

What's the symbolism of thirteen stars or Liberty Bell when Pennsylvania is independent but aligned with VA and what could be a 6-8 state confederation?

If it's strictly something PA-based, perhaps try the Ruffled Grouse, White Tailed Deer, Mountain Laurel, Penn's Landing, (or if wanting to push religious tolerance,) the Hans Herr House.

If there's antagonism with MD, there's always treating Cresap's War is something bigger than it was OTL.

(All this from a guy who would have grown up 400m south of the PA-MD border had MD's claims been recognized by the Crown.) :p
 
One question:

What's the symbolism of thirteen stars or Liberty Bell when Pennsylvania is independent but aligned with VA and what could be a 6-8 state confederation?

If it's strictly something PA-based, perhaps try the Ruffled Grouse, White Tailed Deer, Mountain Laurel, Penn's Landing, (or if wanting to push religious tolerance,) the Hans Herr House.

If there's antagonism with MD, there's always treating Cresap's War is something bigger than it was OTL.

(All this from a guy who would have grown up 400m south of the PA-MD border had MD's claims been recognized by the Crown.) :p

No symbolism really. :p Up to your imagination. Those are neat ideas, though! But like I said, it's not from one of my TLs. If anything, I was thinking along the lines of some sort of post-apocalyptic Enclave-ish PA government.
 
Remember my "Hess and Himmler Auto" ad form a page or two ago, guys? Well...

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:p:D

For those who aren't American, look up "Pep Boys Auto" and I think you'll chuckle a bit.
 
Since we're doing vehicle advertisements, I figured I could do one too. :)

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And a weathered version of the same poster:

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Translation (from Czech):

"Czechoslovak State Railways

Leave the grey past behind you...
Travel swiftly and comfortably across our entire homeland.
Travel aboard the new Series 860 railcars*
!
With ČSD, the bright future of trains begins already today."

:D

This isn't for any of my timelines, it's just a random standalone dedicated to a "What could have been" rolling stock development from OTL. A story with a promising start and middle, but sadly, a premature and disappointing end. In OTL Communist Czechoslovakia, the late 1960s saw increased efforts by the Czechoslovak State Railways to replace and modernize their fleet of smaller rolling stock used for local and regional passenger transport. There were two strands of the whole endeavour: Larger, more powerful and more comfortable railcars for primarily regional passenger service, and smaller, simpler, more inexpensive railbuses for local lines (for routes of only tens of kms at most).

One of the most promising of these new rolling stock projects was the 860 Series of regional railcars, nicknamed chrochtadlo ("grunter"). Alternatively, you can think of them as a kind of large and comfy railbus or a hybrid of railbus and railcar types. Unfortunately, the higher ups at the Ministry of Transport and some people in the Slovak and Czech factories that were supposed to produce additional engines put the kibosh on the whole project in 1979. By then, it had already waited several years to get greenlit for serial production. So, the 860 was not to be and only two fully operational prototypes were ever finished.

To make things worse, only the 810 Series railbus project avoided the chopping block of the government and their Moscow overlords. While the 810 has become a classic and time-tested piece of Czechoslovak (and Czech & Slovak) roling stock, it was never designed to fill in some of the duties that the cancelled 860 was supposed to. Hence why, more than thirty years ago, we received small and not very comfortable railbuses that were often pulling double duty by transporting passengers on the non-express lines for lengths often longer than a 100 kms ! As you can imagine, it was an idiotic and makeshift solution by the government and railway management, since the 810s and their later derivatives were never designed for such a thing... And even today we're still only recovering from the bad production decisions that were made in the late 1970s. In typically East Block fashion, efficiency, common sense and passenger comfort were less important than Moscow and its pawns at the MoT dictating what biz should be conducted and what train types should get axed.

One episode of a Czech documentary series dedicated to abandoned/unbuilt projects covered the ill-fated 860 type. You can watch it here. Both of the surviving 860 prototypes were fortunately not scrapped and they served in the vicinity of Prague for many years as auxilliary rolling stock or even regular passenger liners. They were finally decomissioned in 1997, due to a crippling lack of spare parts. One of the surviving prototypes (001) had been bought by the National Museum of Technology in 2007 and there are plans to gradually restore it and put it on display. The second surviving prototype (002) is to be acquired by the museum as well, but the deal hasn't been finalized yet.

I've tried to imbude my fictional poster's slogans with the typical "the past was awful, a bright future awaits us" propaganda subtext that was all too common in commie era Czechoslovak adverts. ;) The bright new modern train rolling into a station from an old photograph** is exactly the kind of silliness I'd expect from such an upbeat, patriotism-pumping poster at a train station in the 1970s. :D

(* - or "rail motor cars"
** - The station shown in the "old photo" portion of the poster is the one in Náchod.)
 
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WOW. You know a lot about trains. Impressive.

Not really. While I am a rail fan, I'm not the sort of guy who can start pouring out the specs and technical minutae of every single locomotive or car ever designed in some particular country or for some particular line at a moment's notice. :)
 
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